Apple on Wednesday evening extended to its developer community yet another beta of Mac OS X 10.6.3 which lists no known issues, suggesting a formal release over Software Update may be around the corner.

People familiar with the latest beta claim no changes have been made to the software's enhancements checklist, which includes an update to QuickTime X that improves security and compatibility while simultaneously enhancing overall reliability.

Other changes present since earlier betas include tweaks that enhance the performance of Apple's 64-bit Logic pro audio suite and improved compatibility with third-party printers and OpenGL-grounded applications.

Those familiar with Wednesday's beta say Apple is now asking developers to focus their evaluation efforts on Bluetooth, iChat, and USB, in addition to two previously listed focus areas: graphics drivers and QuickTime.

An earlier emphasis on AirPort testing has reportedly been omitted from build 10D561.

Mac OS X 10.6.3 currently weighs in at just over 716MB in Delta form, down slightly from the 737MB package distributed with the previous seeding.

Given that OSX began shipping in 2002, it's really about time for a bit of 'innovation' in the form of something completely new.[/CENTER]

OSX will be with us for like 12 more years according to Steve. At this point I don't see any need to change OSX, just keep updating for new hardware and fine tuning. I love what snow leopard did in terms of fine tuning the OS (like letting you drill down folders.

I would like to see a new version of flash however that does not make the fans spin and eating up 120% of my processor while using street view in google maps.

I hope they are waiting to release the new iWork and iLife in one big package once 10.6.3 is ready to be released. I'm still using iWork '08 and Leopard. I'm ready to upgrade but it makes no sense to buy the upgrade pack now...

Just say no to MacMall. They don't honor their promotions and won't respond to customer inquiries. There are better retailers out there.

I think we should all get the hint now. Apple is going to release these updates slower than normal. That means don't look for 10.7 anytime soon. 10.6 was a foundational release meant to support the multiple platforms (Macs, iPhones, iPads, iPods, etc).

My hopes are that Apple focuses more on the Apps in the OS than the OS itself. They need to refine Safari, Mail, iWork, iLife, QuickTime, and all the rest of their consumer facing products. On the server side they need to beef up their offerings too. Apple should take a break from churning out OS major releases and just work on new products. Save OS 10.7 (or 11) for late 2011 or 2012.

I think we should all get the hint now. Apple is going to release these updates slower than normal. That means don't look for 10.7 anytime soon. 10.6 was a foundational release meant to support the multiple platforms (Macs, iPhones, iPads, iPods, etc).

I don't know, I think we should expect the 10.7 sneak peak at WWDC with an initial dev build for attendees, and the first real demo in early 2011.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

I think we should all get the hint now. Apple is going to release these updates slower than normal. That means don't look for 10.7 anytime soon. 10.6 was a foundational release meant to support the multiple platforms (Macs, iPhones, iPads, iPods, etc).

My hopes are that Apple focuses more on the Apps in the OS than the OS itself. They need to refine Safari, Mail, iWork, iLife, QuickTime, and all the rest of their consumer facing products. On the server side they need to beef up their offerings too. Apple should take a break from churning out OS major releases and just work on new products. Save OS 10.7 (or 11) for late 2011 or 2012.

I don't know, I think we should expect the 10.7 sneak peak at WWDC with an initial dev build for attendees, and the first real demo in early 2011.

Apple has started testing 10.7 early this year. Some blogsites have reported them seeing the "10.7" identification. Since the IP addresses come from the Apple campus it's really likely that a first glimps will be shown at WWDC. I presume -based on previous release schedules- that the retail release will come a full year later, thus summer 2011.

That was the only real security issue that was addressed and that was addressed with a Flash update done by Adobe that many Mac users on this forum had done since Flash had already been updated by the time Mac OS X 10.6.0 had hit the shelves.

Here is a more a complete though detail-less,list of bug fixes for 10.6.1.

•

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL930
edit: AS cvaldes1831 states, Adobe still has complete control over the Flash plugin. Apple doesn't ignore the fact that Flash is prolific and benefit on PCs, but also don't ignore the fact that Adobe never updated Flash to run on mobiles effectively. If they had, we wouldn't almost be into March 2010 with only a few betas of Flash 10.1 being demoed on the 1GHz nexus One. I have to wonder, if Apple had never created the iPhone which sparked a consumer interest in smartphones or had just accepted the pointless Flash Lite plug-in would Adobe had gotten off that ass at all to even have Flash for a couple Android phones 3.5 years after the iPhone was announced? I'm not so sure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by peerkev

Apple has started testing 10.7 early this year. Some blogsites have reported them seeing the "10.7" identification. Since the IP addresses come from the Apple campus it's really likely that a first glimps will be shown at WWDC. I presume -based on previous release schedules- that the retail release will come a full year later, thus summer 2011.

That sounds about right to me. If they follow SL it will be Late Summer or Early Fall of 2011.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Apple on Wednesday evening extended to its developer community yet another beta of Mac OS X 10.6.3 which lists no known issues, suggesting a formal release over Software Update may be around the corner.

Just like the previous four builds didn't list any known issues.

JLL

95% percent of the boat is owned by Microsoft, but the 5% Apple controls happens to be the rudder!

Ah! perhaps finally 10.6 will be out of beta, roll out some new anti-reflective MBP's with replaceable hard drives and batteries and I'm ready to rock with my CC.

They already have anti-reflective screens as an option, and the hard drives are already user replaceable. As far as the battery, well they just switched to the built in battery that doubled battery life and (I'm pretty sure) has 5 times longer longevity.

They already have anti-reflective screens as an option, and the hard drives are already user replaceable. As far as the battery, well they just switched to the built in battery that doubled battery life and (I'm pretty sure) has 5 times longer longevity.

Woohoo has the notion that iPhone OS will replace OS X on Macs.
He's forgotten that iPhone OS IS a "light" version of the full OS X.
I don't see mobile devices editing and processing 1080p HD video anytime soon.

There will always be a role for desktops/laptops until low power mobile processors have the same performance as a full powered desktop/laptop.

Woohoo has its own agenda: calling 10.6 a beta is provocative and inflammatory.
I'm using 10.6.2 on an Aluminium Macbook and it's a solid OS.
My one major gripe was with the Bluetooth Networking bug in 10.5 Leopard but that was fixed - can't remember whether it was by 10.5 or 10.6.

I've found OS X over the years to be much more usable than its Windows equivalents.

I doubt Woohoo even uses, let alone owns any Apple hardware.
There are many who seem to get their entertainment from aggravating others.
The key is to focus on the topic and not to be drawn into these people's games.

All this trouble Apple is having fixing Mac OS X for their select few machines makes me wonder how Windows can run *at all* on so many different pieces of hardware.

A few examples:

•In 10.2 there was a ”sudden logout bug” that meant one suddenly got logged out in the middle of everything (loginwindow process crashed). This was fixed in 10.3.

•In 10.4 we (at work) had quite a lot of headaches with a Kernel Panic that happened after extensive browse of folders containing a lot of items on an AFP. Fixed in 10.5 (but there were another AFP related Kernel Panic that wasn't fixed until 10.5.8 I think).

•In 10.5 the app switcher (cmd tab) after somewhat extensive use suddenly could suddenly stop showing all running applications. Fixed in 10.6.
I also remember a pretty nasty problem in 10.5.3 which would corrupt a PSD file (Photoshop) the second time it was saved to an AFP volume. Fixed in 10.5.4.

•In 10.6 there was the deletion of files when having a guest account. Fixed in 10.6.2.

I know of several more small issues in 10.6.2 – let's see if 10.6.3 takes care of them.

I'm not saying I think Mac OS X is unstable – overall it works very well – but I'm still impressed how Microsoft seems to have done a pretty good job with Windows 7 since I hear almost only happy words about that OS.
If Mac OS X has all these issues it must be a lot worse in Windows, (even Windows 7), right?

I'm curios since I have never really been running Windows as a full time OS.

Shouldn't Mac OS X have even less issues than it has since Apple makes both the hardware and software?
Maybe they have more resources and more people testing things over at Microsoft.

Given that OSX began shipping in 2002, it's really about time for a bit of 'innovation' in the form of something completely new.[/CENTER]

Why would you change a UNIX based OS to something completely new. You will just try to re-invent the wheel and do it poorly, like many others have demonstrated time and time again. Volumes and volumes have been written on the subject and this knowledge is common staple of any CS graduate.

It's out and being used somewhat. It will be used much more in the very near future. It's called:

HTML5

HTML5 is NOT a flash replacement. Nor is Flash a video delivery technology.

People need to stop talking about HTML5 in this way, it undervalues the importance of the next generation of web standards. HTML will never allow the level of interaction or animation afforded by Flash, but it does allow video delivery without the need for a plug-in. That is less than 0.01% of what this standard is about.

HTML5 is NOT in competition to flash, nor is its purpose to eradicate Flash.

All this trouble Apple is having fixing Mac OS X for their select few machines makes me wonder how Windows can run *at all* on so many different pieces of hardware.

A few examples:

•In 10.2 there was a ”sudden logout bug” that meant one suddenly got logged out in the middle of everything (loginwindow process crashed). This was fixed in 10.3.

•In 10.4 we (at work) had quite a lot of headaches with a Kernel Panic that happened after extensive browse of folders containing a lot of items on an AFP. Fixed in 10.5 (but there were another AFP related Kernel Panic that wasn't fixed until 10.5.8 I think).

•In 10.5 the app switcher (cmd tab) after somewhat extensive use suddenly could suddenly stop showing all running applications. Fixed in 10.6.
I also remember a pretty nasty problem in 10.5.3 which would corrupt a PSD file (Photoshop) the second time it was saved to an AFP volume. Fixed in 10.5.4.

•In 10.6 there was the deletion of files when having a guest account. Fixed in 10.6.2.

I know of several more small issues in 10.6.2 – let's see if 10.6.3 takes care of them.

I'm not saying I think Mac OS X is unstable – overall it works very well – but I'm still impressed how Microsoft seems to have done a pretty good job with Windows 7 since I hear almost only happy words about that OS.
If Mac OS X has all these issues it must be a lot worse in Windows, (even Windows 7), right?

I'm curios since I have never really been running Windows as a full time OS.

Shouldn't Mac OS X have even less issues than it has since Apple makes both the hardware and software?
Maybe they have more resources and more people testing things over at Microsoft.

All of your examples affected a tiny minority of users. With the exception of the "guest account bug" in 10.6, which again was only an issue for a minority of users. It is only possible to test so many hardware/firmware/software/environmental combinations, especially when the public (even more so) users of sites such as these are constantly screaming for Apple to rush hardware and software updates. Most users have no/very few issues and for most users, these issues are tiny. How many users actually had data loss from the guest account bug for instance? Compared to how many users losing data/user accounts on windows every day? Why aren't the Windows issues reported as abject failures? and 'catastrophies'? The reason is because everyone likes to pick fault, it's easier than lauding praise.

The problem Apple have is one of perception - every 'issue' is blown out of proportion and stated (normally on these pages) to affect every user on the planet. It's normally less than half a percent of users. I have been an adopter of every new device on release date and every OS on release date. I have yet to experience a single major issue, and I've been using macs and windows computers side by side since 1987. I can assure you there are is no major 'trouble', and compared to the Wintel boxes sat next to my iMac, using Apple hardware/software is an absolute dream.

"but I'm still impressed how Microsoft seems to have done a pretty good job with Windows 7 since I hear almost only happy words about that OS."

I have more than a few unhappy words to say about Windows, as do the endless clients I spend giving tech support to day in, day out - especially those unfortunate adopters of windows vista. I use windows - it is a constant uphill struggle. They seem to have got things right with Windows 7, but I'm still having nightmares with peripherals and software. The devices that were attached to my machine under 10.1, are still running today under 10.6.

Will be interesting to try at least, so one then knows for sure that Mac OS X is the best.

And I'm talking about Windows 7 here that's what we should compare to not older Windows versions. Otherwise we're like the Apple bashers who still thinks you can't right-click on a Mac.

Have you been using Windows 7 for an extended time?

Yes, I have been using Windows 7 64 bit for a while now at work. It's an improvement over previous versions, but still feels clunky and hard to use. Even though it has Windows search, crippled expose etc, it's still chatty, you still have to mess with registry and it still feels like "windows" .

Luckily I spend most of my time in terminal (the company I work for makes port of UNIX shells for Windows as one of our products, and that makes my life easier:

No one here could imagine doing any work without UNIX subsystem on Windows, even though we don't have to use Windows as primary OS, since we also develop our software for Linux, AIX, HPUX, Solaris (no OS X support yet), so I could develop on any of those OSes, but since Windows happens to be most popular client we try to use it so we feel the pain of our users (eat our own dog food so to speak).

Woohoo has its own agenda: calling 10.6 a beta is provocative and inflammatory.

My apologies, I see it was a bit snarky.

I'm a long time Mac user and it used to be when a OS version was released to the general public it was already tested and reliable.

Apple has taken the stance of releasing a new version without substantial testing on a wide enough scale, thus we have had major user problems of the kinds Leopard and Snow Leopard have had.

I would like to see Apple adopt the huge community of advanced users to further beta test their OS X versions prior to release to the general computing market.

By spreading the testing field out further, with those with the time and ability to revert back to their older configuration, Apple can produce a more reliable product with less headaches for the regular users.

Apple hasn't been able to stop any leaks of information contained in their OS developer releases, so it makes little sense to continue with that small pool as beta testers.

Apple has beta released versions of Safari for advanced users to test and report, I don't see why not it also can be applied to the OS.